Stanford's campus is in many ways like a nature preserve. It's expansive, yet contained and protected, very peaceful, and it allows you to quietly observe scholars in their natural habitat. Sometimes you even get to see some of the picked carcasses of fallen life forms.
The medical school campus is architecturally very bold. I found it a little intimidating; not sure what a med student would think.
There is a nice fountain in the middle, which is apparently stocked with ducks. Not sure where the ducks come from but they seem to like it there.
I wonder what "wild life experts" would recommend about feeding the med students.
This is the courtyard of the neurological sciences building. It looks nice, but because of the way they designed the mechanical systems it's deafeningly loud on the inside, so you don't see many people in it.
Here's a door that I didn't open.
This is the William Gates building. Guess what they do there?
I spent most of the afternoon hanging around the Stanford Artificial Intelligence lab, which is guarded by this friendly robot arm. It looks friendly now, but if you look at it the wrong way, watch out. It's got a gun!
I observed the daily routines of computer science graduate students.
Which involved a lot of this.
Playing with a hackey sack is always fun of course, until this happens:
And then, like good grad students, they manage to further compound the problem.
That evening, we went out to sample the best burrito in Mountain View. Here's where we went.
Although we were a bit confused, because a claim was also laid down by this place, which is incidentally in the same building.
We ended up going to the place that also sells Bimbo and pinatas, and we were not disappointed.
Next up was a trip to the DQ for some royal treatment ... or perhaps it was a peanut buster?
We wanted to get a particular DVD to watch, but the local Target store didn't have it. They did have this Seagal classic, but we decided to pass.
Wednesday, March 5 was another sunny, lazy day at Stanford. I visited the Hoover Institute, a Republican think-tank that commemorates the only U.S. President to have attended Stanford. It is also home to the tallest and most suggestive tower on campus.
This tower of course complements the other famous structure with Hoover's name on it, the Hoover Dam.
The tower provided nice views of the place where some people are fortunate enough to go to school.
Stanford is just full of nice buildings and spaces, including the Old Student Union, which had been renovated since I last visited two years ago:
And the Law School campus:
And this little quad near several of the campus libraries:
That particular quad is home to Moon Bean's Coffee, a nice little stand that I liked, and was supposedly a favorite of Chelsea Clinton as well. Who knew?
It's even serviced by a real old-fashioned milkman.
Stopping in the restroom of the library, I found some illuminating graffiti. Someone must be predicting that an economic recovery will begin in August of this year.
As the afternoon wore on, I thought I'd see what it's like to be on a campus with a Division I athletic program. Here, student-athletes were taking some practice on the track.
I believe the baseball team might have been on the road, so there wasn't much happening at the "sunken diamond" where Stanford plays.
Nor was there much happening on the golf course, notable as the course where Tiger Woods cut his teeth.
I did manage to take in some women's lacrosse, which wasn't drawing too big a crowd considering the game was at 3:30 in the afternoon. I watched the first half, after which Stanford led my hometown team Boston College 9-6. They managed to hold on and win 14-10.
In the morning I noted this sign, which I just thought was funny but turned out to be auspicious, as later that afternoon my associate was tagged from behind by a cyclist in much the same fashion as pictured here, somewhat fouling up his marathon recovery.
The day was rounded off with some Mediterranean wraps and baklava and some DVD viewing. But first, of course, we had to refill the night sky with stars.
Tune in someday for the continuation of my trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment